Erasing all data from my old 2006 Imac

[petalino]

I have an old 2006 Imac with Lion OS (10.7.5) that I would like to give to a friend.

Before I give it away, I need to wipe my HD so that noone can access my old data. I also do not have a cd with the OS, so reformatting the HD and installing the OS from a CD is probably not possible.

What steps would you recommend to erase my existence from this Imac?

Thanks in advance for your answers.
Andrzej

 

[Fishrrman]

What I'd do:

1. Ask you friend what he'd like his ACCOUNT NAME to be. Make sure you get it right, this can't be changed afterwards.

2. Once you have that info, create a NEW account with
- his account name (which you agreed on)
- a password you create and will give to him (he can change it later)
MAKE SURE IT HAS ADMINISTRATIVE PRIVILEGES.
Just create a username and password for now. Let him set the rest of it up on his own.

3. Then, LOG OUT of YOUR account and log into the NEW account

4. Now, DELETE your account. Don't "archive" it... DELETE it.

5. Next, you will probably want to "manually delete" any of your documents that were stored "outside of" your former home folder.

6. Also, you may want to delete some of your 3rd-party apps (other than the Apple apps). Or... just leave them there. Remember, that your specific app preferences are "wiped away" when you deleted your home folder. So when he runs those apps he will create his own new preferences.

7. I don't remember if the older versions of disk utility permit you to erase "the free space" on the drive (without erasing things that were installed). If it does, you could use a "1-pass" to wipe the free space.
There are some 3rd-party utilities, such as "Drive Genius" that will do this (see the "shred" option). You may be able to scrounge up an old copy if you don't already have it.

Doing all this will get it "about as clean as you can get" without booting from another drive and using disk utility to erase the entire drive with a "secure erase" option. This would do the same thing as above... use the option to write zeros in all the blocks of the drive. But you do that with the "free space erase" anyway.

 

[Weaselboy]

Given this is for a friend, you could just create a new admin account, then login to that account and delete your account.

 

[petalino]

Thanks Weaselboy.

That was also my idea. Its simple and easy.
The question is what happens to any of my old files left on Desktop or anywhere else? I know that she will not be able to access them without my password, but will these files be wiped out and eventually overwritten?
In other words, what happens to my files if I delete my account on the Imac?

 

[Weaselboy]

When you remove the account tell it to trash everything and it will be gone. In theory, if someone bought third party file recovery software they might be able to get some of those files back. But I'm assuming your friend would not be interested in doing that, hence my suggestion. Eventually, yes, all that space would be overwritten.

 

[Nguyen Duc Hieu]

I have an old 2006 Imac with Lion OS (10.7.5) that I would like to give to a friend.

Before I give it away, I need to wipe my HD so that noone can access my old data. I also do not have a cd with the OS, so reformatting the HD and installing the OS from a CD is probably not possible.

What steps would you recommend to erase my existence from this Imac?

Thanks in advance for your answers.
Andrzej

This is the absolute option:

Open you iMac and remove the HDD.
Install another new SSD inside.
Keep your HDD or destroy it physically (by drilling and hammering it to unrecognizable shape)

 

[Blue Quark]

I'm really not sure why one would pass on a computer without at a minimum actually erasing the hard drive.

However, I also strongly agree with Nguyen Duc Hieu on this: buy an SSD and install it, then boot the iMac up with the option key down so you can eventually pick a network and do an Internet-based Mac OS X installation, and use that to set the system up from scratch.

 

[clueless88]

Could one do steps 1-6 as fisherrman suggested, then clone the drive with something like Carbon Copy Clone to a blank HDD or SSD, then install the clone?

Will the cloning software just copy the active programs/apps/info or will it also clone stuff that has been deleted?

 

[Weaselboy]

Could one do steps 1-6 as fisherrman suggested, then clone the drive with something like Carbon Copy Clone to a blank HDD or SSD, then install the clone?

I'm not following what that would accomplish? All it would do is copy everything off the drive then put it right back where it was.

 

[clueless88]

Does cloning software also copy deleted or orphaned items? I know that when one deletes items in Windows it just removes the file pointers (or removes it from an index) freeing up that space to be overwritten later.

Was hoping that cloning software just copied active files/programs/etc, and not the deleted/unindexed ones.

 

[Weaselboy]

No... CCC would not copy over deleted files. Are you suggested clone off then erase the drive then clone back to mkake it more difficult to restore deleted files? If so, that makes sense.